The pandemic-era trend of publicly demonstrating all sanitation efforts has wiped out the public and personal sectors, but some medical experts are concerned that these surface cleanup efforts are the most effective way to combat the spread of the respiratory virus.
California hotels proudly demonstrate their $100,000 UNITED Airlines UV disinfection robots also announced that they were high-tech antimicrobial spray robots on some aircraft to provide the “deepest cleaning. “United noted that this was a complementary generation that was used in combination with masks and other measures. .
New York City’s 24-hour subway formula announced closures in the middle of the night for the first time in its history to disinfect exercise cars, a resolution that comes with an estimated additional value of $500 million by 2020. This value label includes a small portion for protection of appliances and temperature controls for employees.
The disinfection industry, often neglected, has soared; Clorox’s inventory reached a new record last month and rose 35% in 2020; and many companies and start-ups that promote disinfectant chopsticks and other devices have also reported a dizzying increase in interest.
Public demonstrations of corporate disinfection efforts have been called “hygiene theatre” in a recent article in The Atlantic, which equated emaciated performances with post-September 11 “safety theatre” phenomena, a company that has been criticized for focusing more on dispelling people’s considerations. rather than movements that focus on safety.
Dr. Emanuel Goldman, professor of microbiology at Rutgers University and co-editor of the Practical Handbook of Microbiology, warned in an observation published in the medical journal Lancet in July that the threat of getting COVID-19 from a surface was “exaggerated”. and has become one of the leading voices that raises considerations about the poor allocation of resources to the so-called “hygiene theatre”.
Goldman told ABC News that the “danger” of the theater of hygiene is that it “adjusts the attention of what will protect you, and it’s to protect what you breathe. “
Obsessive cleaning in a pandemic is necessarily a bad thing, Goldman said, especially for busy and busy places, such as grocery pay routes.
“When you start implementing this strategy on the New York City subway, for example, in public school formulas, it starts to get a bad thing because it wastes limited resources,” he said. “In the case of the New York subway, not only is it a massive blow to your budget, it’s also a massive inconvenience for your transportation formula to be closed every night. “
Earlier this week, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the company that runs the subway, launched a desperate appeal for $ 12 billion in federal funding, warning that all supplier contracts are threatened.
Ken Lovett, senior adviser to the president and CEO of MTA, told ABC News in a statement that the MTA “has resolved to do everything in its power to ensure that the protection of our consumers and employees is heroic, and we continue to do so with – cleaning and disinfection station and rolling inventory watches, testing new strategies such as UV lamps , antimicrobials and electrostatic sprayers, and it is not easy for everyone in the formula to wear masks. “
“While the exchange of new air in the metro far exceeds the minimum fees charged through the CDC for some healthcare services and restaurants, we are addressing the aerosol challenge by incorporating new technologies to solve the challenge through the Challenge. COVID and we will continue to respond in real time to do everything possible to protect our customers. ” added.
Goldman said he recently won an email from an instructor who had read his studies and told him that his school board planned to close one day a week for “deep cleaning. “
“They have limited resources, it’s going to take a lot of money, it’s going to take time,” he said. “I wrote to the school board for it and miraculously they listened to me and redirected their budget to the ventilation systems. because breathing is where this disease contracts.
Ultimately, expensive, high-tech disinfection appliances are not at their best, according to Goldman.
“Water and soap kill COVID,” he says. Common alcohol kills COVID. “
Dr. John Brownstein, epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, told ABC News that the so-called exercise theater can be “really important” in certain cases, such as fitness facilities or places where other high-risk people live or work, where he says, “we have to do everything we can for transmission. “
However, he added that “such interventions are surely suitable for all contexts. “
Brownstein told ABC News that there is a “theoretical risk” that he can catch COVID-19 from a surface, but that “it’s probably not the main mode of transmission. “
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been in the process ofBut it’s not the first time They state that “it is imaginable for a user to contract COVID-19 by touching a surface or object containing the virus and then touching the mouth, nose or, in all likelihood, the eyes, but not the idea of being the main propagation direction of the virus. “
The World Health Organization says that transmission by formites “is considered a very likely mode of transmission” for COVID-19, but adds that despite evidence that the virus may be on surfaces, “there are no express reports that have directly demonstrated transmission by formites. “
The fitness company Unass also noted that other people who come into contact with potentially infectious surfaces also have close contact with an inflamed person, making the distinctions between respiratory droplets and fomite transmission difficult to discern.
Although studies have been conducted in the afterlife showing that COVID-19 can live on surfaces, Goldman said that in real-world outdoor scenarios in a laboratory, he found that evidence of superficial transmission (or fomite) of the virus “was incredibly weak. “
“Many steps must be taken before transmitting the virus from a surface,” Goldman told ABC News. “First, an inflamed user would have to cough or sneeze on this surface. Then the person would have to touch that inner surface, I would say, in an hour or two, and then wash his hands between the two, touch his face, mouth, ears or eyes. “
He added that there is a “suspicious risk” of contracting the virus in this way.
“I don’t need to misinform people,” he added. ” Washing your hands is vital. Good hygiene is vital. It would be vital even if there wasn’t a pandemic, that’s what we deserve to do anyway. “
Brownstein said one of his biggest considerations with the theater of hygiene is that it is “simply sustainable. “
“We’re asking the public to do a lot and at some point there will be pandemic fatigue,” he added.
He noted that the more experts strive to impose this kind of effort on a theoretical risk, “the more likely it is that other people, fundamentally, do not need to implement them. “
“We know that things like wearing a mask are so critical, let’s look at the few disruptions that we know are causing those transmissions,” he added.
Similarly, Goldman told ABC News that “the most you can do is wear a mask. “
While the theater of hygiene has been widely welcomed by a concerned audience, disguised as masks, which experts in being one of the most productive lines of defense against spread, has become a flashpoint in the United States.
Along with strict mask compliance, the two experts said social estating, indoor-outdoor activities, and ventilation systems were key to addressing the spread of the virus.
Finally, Goldman stated that if you enter a store, place to eat or elsewhere, don’t first take a look at your hygiene theater regimen for insurance; instead, she recommends checking if all staff and others are dressed in masks, what social distance they measure are being implemented, and even asking questions about ventilation efforts.
24/7 policy of the latest news and events